Nov 22, 2009

Full review to follow, maybe Tuesday.A syrupy football movie, but also a fascinating story, based on fact. Sandra Bullock seems to have hired a new trainer and seems to like the results.

An Education GPA 3.8

Full review to follow, maybe Tuesday. London, 1961. A 16-year-old brainy beauty is tempted by a 30-something wannabe sugar daddy and the fast life he offers. An intelligent acting out the details of a fairly predictable plot; I never lost interest, but did think our heroine's dimples and giggles were a touch overdone. Of course, with her beauty, my complaint is faint.

I got busy, so I offer a couple of pictures, and I hope a tease for more complete movie reviews or other absolute wisdom later in the week.

Lord knows about the Russian thing. Citizen K was good. I've never seen Rules. Think you're mixing me up with your SoCal braniac wits. Harvard Berkeley only. :) Should I see Rules of the Game? I saw that someone called it a comedy of manners or some such. If so, not my cup of beer. House of Cards? Junebug? No Country for Old Men? Those were 4.0.

Many consider Rules of the Game the finest film ever made. Maybe, but it's a little too smart for me. Not a comedy of manners at all -- it is a metaphor for the events leading up to world war 2, and the death of the aristocracy and rise of the middle classes in Europe.

Every serious film goer has to see it. So you have to see it. AND if you buy that argument, you also have to see Marcel Carne's Children of Paradise. That one I understand and love.

A.H., you've definitely got me interested in those two. I'll be ordering soon, at least Rules of the Game.

FYI to anyone else who might be interested in the film, AND to show I'm not a hallucinator (though also not a careful reader), here's what Wiki said, which led me to my "comedy of manners" comment:

"Renoir takes the film far beyond the pleasantries of a typical comedy of manners . . ."

Also, "The film was initially condemned for its satire on the French upper classes and was greeted with derision by a Parisian crowd on its première. The upper class is depicted in this film as capricious and self-indulgent, with little regard for the consequences of their actions. The French government banned it,[2] but after the War it has come to be seen by many film critics and directors as one of the greatest films of all time.[3]"